1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toll charging system and toll charging method and, more particularly, to a toll charging system and toll charging method, which automatically charge a toll for a toll road or the like as a vehicle passes through the road.
2. Description of the Related Art
To automatically charge a vehicle a toll, a method has conventionally been employed in which an onboard device is mounted on a vehicle, a credit card is inserted into the onboard device, and a toll rate corresponding to a toll is paid from the credit card on the basis of communication with a roadside system at a tollgate.
For such a toll charging method, however, a dedicated roadside infrastructure is necessary. In addition, a driver must purchase an expensive onboard device. For these reasons, this system is not rapidly proliferating.
A toll charging system which requires no onboard device and uses only a portable telephone has been developed.
However, only with a portable telephone, the charging side cannot measure the accurate position of a vehicle. Hence, this toll charging system does not work well. In addition, since a vehicle model cannot be specified, the system cannot accurately charge a toll that changes depending on the vehicle model.
For position measurement, when a GPS receiver is added, the position accuracy can be increased to some extent. However, position data measured by a GPS receiver may be altered.
Additionally, in such a toll charging system using only a portable telephone, charging is done when the driver side calls the charging side using a portable telephone. However, a driver cannot make a call by himself using a portable telephone during driving, as a matter of course. To do this, a dedicated device for making a call using a portable telephone is required.
As described above, a toll charging system that requires an expensive onboard device cannot quickly proliferate. On the other hand, a toll charging system using only a portable telephone is not practical.